


Confluence

by carolyn_claire



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, Humor, Sweet, romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:02:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29592525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolyn_claire/pseuds/carolyn_claire
Summary: Some things just work better together.
Relationships: Teyla Emmagan/Rodney McKay
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	Confluence

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2009 LJ sticksandsnark comm Rodney/Teyla Thing-a-thon. Rodney/Teyla was a pairing that I initially couldn't imagine working at all, so I had to give it a try, and I ended up really enjoying the results. I used the same alternating timeline jumps that I used in Thirst to tell the story, possibly more as a way to quickly link the scenes together than for any sort of artistic purpose, as I wrote it entirely in the two days before the deadline. Raine Wynd and Tingler gave very helpful feedback.

********

* _Day +23_ *

The night was cool; Rodney shifted forward, closer to Teyla, slipping the hand of the arm he had wrapped around her under the edge of her t-shirt, against the warm skin of her stomach. If she were awake, she might squeak at him, protest laughingly, and pull his arm a little more tightly around her waist; instead, she only murmured softly, sighed, and stilled. 

Rodney leaned his forehead against the back of her head and sighed as well, blowing wisps of her hair aside. He could smell the skin of her neck, the scent of the waxy leaves they used to wash with, and the slight musk of her hair, cool over the warmth of her skin. He began to harden in response, in what he’d initially told himself was a purely Pavlovian response to the feel and smell of a beautiful woman in his arms but had known for some time was about much more than that. Teyla appeared to know it, too, if her reaction was any indication, and he no longer shifted away from her when it happened, obeying the gentle pressure of her fingers on his wrist, holding him in place around her, or the lean of her body backwards into his. She wasn’t uncomfortable with it, and so he wasn’t, anymore, either. He wasn’t sure when sleeping with Teyla had evolved into the desire to _sleep with_ Teyla, moving beyond the mere awareness of her desirability to an urge with a strength that had initially startled him, one that had finally settled into a sort of possessive, protective longing that was no less startling and no more reassuring to him. In Atlantis, he couldn’t imagine anything like this ever happening, but they hadn’t been in Atlantis for some time, now.

* _Day 0_ *

“You good?” Sheppard poked his head through the doorway and glanced around Rodney’s little corner of the ruin.

“Define ‘good.’” Rodney examined another stone panel, fingers tracing along the engravings and skimming its edges before pressing firmly. 

“That’s a yes, then.” Sheppard nodded and ducked away again before Rodney could respond. 

He didn’t let that stop him, though. “Some help, here? Another pair of hands might get us off the Planet of Rabid Rats sooner rather than later, which would be very nice.” 

John stepped inside. “These little suckers are fast, Rodney. You could end up with a seriously knawed ankle if we don’t keep this area clear.” An energy discharge sounded from a little ways away; John’s eyes darted to the doorway.

“And heaven forbid that Ronan should get ahead of you in your little whack-a mole competition.” Sheppard grinned; Rodney didn’t bother rolling his eyes. “Seriously, if you could spare a few minutes out of your important rodent slaying—”

“I’ll see if Teyla wants to take a break.” Sheppard scanned the walls around them, crumbling in parts but still largely intact, except for the largish holes in the ceiling. “Still no idea who these folks were?”

Rodney sighed. “No. And no Rosetta stone found, either, just miles of indecipherable text. Why did none of these people ever use the graphic novel format when inscribing their artifact-hiding rooms?”

“Because that would take all the fun out of it, Rodney.” The zip-pow of an energy burst sounded nearby, and Sheppard turned and jogged away.

“Speaking of which,” Rodney muttered, frowning at the annoyingly cryptic wall in front of him. He pulled out his scanner, angling it up and down the wall and sweeping it from side to side.

“How can I help, Rodney?” Teyla smiled at him as she walked through the doorway, brushing her hair out of her eyes with one hand. 

Rodney shook his head as he frowned at his scanner. “These readings are so diffuse that all I can tell is that there’s something in this wall. Not where, though.” He stuffed the scanner back into his vest and placed his hands against the stonework. “Each panel appears to have been placed separately, rather than carved into the wall. There may be an edge that we can pry up or a switch that we can press, something.” He demonstrated by running his fingertips over the carvings and around the edge of the panel in front of him. 

Teyla nodded and unhooked her P-90 from her vest, standing it in the corner near Rodney’s before crouching down next to him. “If you have not tried the lower panels, I will begin here.” 

They worked in silence for several minutes, Teyla crawling along beside him as they moved down the wall toward the corner. Rodney was grateful not to be the one on his knees; he thought he might ask Ronon to examine the higher row of panels, if he could tear him away from the blood-sport. 

“Rodney.” He looked down to see Teyla peering closely at the edge of a panel; she seemed to be finding some purchase for her fingers behind its top edge. He crouched down next to her and felt along the same edge, then retrieved his scanner. The results were as disappointingly vague as they had been before, so he set it down on the floor next to him and went back to prying.

“This is good, this feels like—” The edge he had been pulling at broke away, exposing a glimpse of a cavity behind it. 

“Are we doing this correctly? Should there not be a release mechanism of some sort?” Teyla pulled her hands away from the stone and frowned at the broken edge.

Rodney patted his vest, then pulled out a flashlight and bent lower to squint into the small opening. “I may have been giving these people more credit than they deserved. There’s no evidence that they even knew how to—ah! Definitely something inside, there. This may be it.” He wriggled his fingers inside the exposed crevice and started to pull.

Teyla stopped him with one hand over his. “The inscriptions on this panel may have information about the item hidden inside. “

“Which might actually be helpful if we could read any of it.” He sighed at her raised eyebrow. “Pictures, yes.” He muttered under his breath as he patted at his vest, again, and then pulled out a camera. “The linguists can have a field day.” 

“I’m sure they’ll want to come and examine this ruin, themselves. I have never seen such inscriptions, nor heard of the previous inhabitants of this planet.” Teyla gazed up the wall at the rows of carvings, lit by the afternoon sunshine streaming through the holes in the ceiling, while Rodney snapped a few pictures of the soon-to-be-further-damaged panel in front of them. 

“Okay, that should do it.” Rodney set the camera down on the floor next to his scanner and flashlight and reached for the panel, again.

“Is the item large enough to require us to remove the entire panel?” Teyla leaned toward the hole Rodney was creating by breaking away small chunks of stone.

“Good point.” Rodney picked up his flashlight, again, and pointed it into the hole. “I can probably pull it out, now. Hold this right here.” He moved aside a little to allow Teyla to slide in close and take the light, holding it where he’d wedged it into a corner of the opening in the panel. 

“And you are sure that the item is safe to touch?” 

“Reasonably sure. It isn’t completely inert, but its energy readings are negligible, and if it is what we think it is, it’ll probably need to be charged before it can become active.” He slid one hand slowly into the cavity. “And its function appears to be largely informational, like a sort of temporal scanner. I’m actually more concerned about spiders, at this point. I’ve almost—” Rodney’s bicep filled the small opening, and he twisted his arm a little to allow him to go deeper, grimacing in discomfort. Teyla leaned in with him, one hand on his shoulder for balance, trying to maneuver the now mostly-useless flashlight a little more out of the way as he groped blindly inside the wall. 

“Ah! I’ve got you, you little—” At Rodney’s words, a quiet humming began inside the cavity; at the same time, the surfaces of the room began to glow a soft, transparent blue, walls, ceiling and floor united in an uninterrupted wash of energy that highlighted the carvings and bridged the gaps and crevices of the old structure. There was a flash and a pop, and then darkness.

* _Day +12_ *

They’d developed a morning routine that had become comfortable in its familiarity, if not in actual practice. The latrine/midden was a little distance from their lean-to hut, an inconvenience on which Teyla had insisted, their knowledge of the local fauna not being complete (as evidenced by the incident that Rodney liked to think of as his brave rescue of Teyla from a mountain lion; Teyla did not contradict him.) There was a stream of potable water not far from their camp where they could wash with the large, waxy, mildly astringent-smelling leaves of the tsumit bush that Teyla had located. Rodney made liberal use of them, after having touched one gingerly to the inside of his elbow and then waiting anxiously for 24 hours for a rash that didn’t, thankfully, materialize. They were surprisingly effective.

Breakfast consisted of a sort of herbal tea, served to him by Teyla over their morning fire, and whatever they had gathered the day before. Teyla’s knowledge of roots and berries was apparently encyclopedic enough that she could make educated guesses about the safety and utility of even those that she didn’t immediately recognize. These and roasted rodent (horrible in concept, not that bad in execution, though nothing like the proverbial chicken) made up their diet, along with the occasional bird or rabbit/squirrel thing, since the absence of packs meant no MREs and not nearly enough power-bars (there were only so many pockets in a tac vest.) 

Larger, less disgusting game would have been welcome, but they hadn’t happened on any, yet. Rodney speculated that the presence of a large predator should imply the presence of large game; Teyla’s opinion that the predator hadn’t actually been all that large was certainly belied by the size of the gouges the thing’s claws had left in his calf. Possibly any deer-like creatures had migrated to another area, which might explain why the puma had had the temerity to attack them--the absence of its usual prey. Teyla allowed that this could be the case. 

As it was, Rodney spent some portion of every day playing actual whack-a-mole, or, more literally, whack-a-rat, in the mysterious ruins that had sent them there in the first place. Fortunately for their limited ammo supply, the rodents were fairly stupid and easy to stun with a stick when tempted into a depression in the stone with a bit of power-bar--another reason why there weren’t many of those left. If Rodney was fast enough, he could dispatch the rat before it ate the crumb, which could then be reused until a rat managed to beat him to the punch, so to speak. He was really getting pretty good at it.

He spent a sizeable portion of the daylight hours (when Teyla didn’t need his strength for lifting or breaking or hammering something) studying the device that had sent them there. They both felt reasonably sure that they were still on the same planet, based on the familiarity of the buildings and the pattern of forest growth around them; it was most likely a matter of when they were, rather than where, which would fit with the now obviously erroneous information they’d gotten from the Ancient database about the device having something to do with data related to time. 

The ruin itself gave them few clues--it had been a ruin before, and it was a ruin now; a few years or a few hundred could have passed in either direction, and it would have made little difference. According to Teyla, the encroachment, or lack of it, of the forest around them on the clearing containing the ruined buildings led her to believe that they’d probably gone, at most, only a few years into the future, rather than a few hundred or thousand, possibly in response to the (thankfully) low energy levels Rodney had detected in the device on the day it had activated. If they’d had access to a gate, the fact that they might only have traveled a few years would have been a good thing, or at least a better thing than it was.

* _Day 0_ *

“You don’t get it. Even if it’s only a matter of days, we’re still screwed, because we came here through a space gate. It’s not like we can hop home and grab future-Zelenka and an arsenal of tools. Or eat. Or take a shower. ” Rodney ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “We’re completely cut off, and they have no idea where we are, or, actually, when we are. We could have traveled no further than Thursday, but that’s no help if they all gave up and left on Wednesday!” 

“I’m sure that they’re doing everything in their power to locate us, Rodney.” Teyla dusted at the knees of her slacks as she stood. “And I have confidence that you will discover how to reverse the device’s function very soon. It is what you do best, is it not? Performing technological miracles under great pressure?” She smiled at him as she extended her hand toward him and helped him to his feet. 

“Well, of course I will, eventually. But who knows how long it’s going to take, under these circumstances? I’m not usually this ridiculously under-equipped.” He looked down at his tac vest and plucked at the pockets. “Stone knives and bearskins,” he muttered, following her to the doorway of the building. 

“You have never yet failed us, Rodney.” Teyla rested one hand absently on his shoulder without looking at him. He followed her gaze toward the forest beyond the ruin, its greens and browns deepening in the lengthening shadows.

“Are there large animals out there, do you think?” Rodney laid both hands on his P-90.

As though in response, a distant howl sounded, starting low and rising in pitch to near inaudibility. Rodney took a step back through the doorway and into the ruin, but a low scuttling sound from behind him made him step forward again, his eyes round with his mounting agitation. 

“That sounded very like the call of a bird that lived on Athos, a night hunter of small animals.” Teyla linked her arm through Rodney’s and started for the edge of the forest. “If we are going to find shelter before nightfall, we should begin surveying the area now.” 

“A bird?” Rodney looked up into the treetops ahead of them. “Like an owl, you think? We had owls on Earth that would make horrible noises, like something getting killed. Or, or getting ready to kill you.”

“I’m sure it is very like your owl.” She smiled up at him and drew him forward, him into the woods.

* _Day +18_ *

“This is healing well.” Teyla set the damp rag down next to the used bandage and the still steaming basin of water and began to re-wrap Rodney’s leg with a clean one. “Soon we will not need to wrap it at all.”

“I don’t mind wearing it, since we’re nearly out of antibiotic ointment. It stays cleaner, this way.” Rodney blinked down at the top of Teyla’s head. “I mean, if you don’t mind doing it. I could probably do it myself, actually, if you….” He reached down toward her hands, but she had already finished. 

She sat back and smiled up at him. “I do not mind, Rodney. It is the least that I can do.”

He smiled back at her, coloring a little. “It wasn’t that large of a cat, really. I doubt that you were in any actual danger, to be honest. “

“I was not. You were there with me.” Her smile broadened as she stood. “Are you ready to go to work?”

“Just need my lunchbox and I’m good to go.” Teyla handed him his walking stick but kept the bundle with their lunch in it as they made their way out of the woods and toward the small circle of ruined buildings. 

They spent several hours working on the device, or, more accurately, Rodney worked on the device and Teyla worked beside him on home crafts or weapons, careful to be always touching him at some point. That they might have been transported together because they had been touching was only a guess, but Rodney felt it was a possibility, though all the other items in the room had been transported with them. It certainly wasn’t worth taking a chance over, and Teyla didn’t seem to mind, working on her projects beside him in companionable silence while he muttered and swore or fumed silently at the recalcitrant device. They worked on it in the ruin because Rodney had no way of knowing what effect the structure might have on the device’s functioning; he even kept it slightly inside the cavity he’d found it in, once he’d pulled the rest of the stone panel away, in case that made a difference. He’d created a pedestal for it to rest on as he worked that helped some with the strain on his back created by hours spent sitting on the floor, bent over a stupid, malfunctioning Ancient device. Teyla’s backrubs were also amazingly helpful in that regard.

Later in the day, they hunted and gathered, as Rodney like to think of it, also together, because Rodney had a lot to learn about surviving in the wild and because, well, there were hungry wildcats out there, and Rodney had the legs for them, apparently. Teyla taught Rodney about plant identification, about snare setting and field dressing, told him stories about victories and mishaps and humorous blunders in her own acquisition of these skills and generally made the experience not at all boring or onerous. He was learning so much more than he had, or had even imagined possible, as an Eager Beaver, and was actually enjoying it, mostly, this time. He suspected it had more to do with the company than the subject, though. 

In the evenings there was dinner to prepare, provisions to assemble for the next day, repairs to make to their shelter or their few possessions, and more stories to tell—Rodney’s as well as Teyla’s. He’d told her more about himself over the last few weeks than he’d told anyone besides his shrink, and possibly more, though less of the more embarrassing childhood stuff. She’d been remarkably sympathetic over his story about having wanted to be a pianist, even to the point of tears standing in her eyes, which had made him feel suddenly awful for having burdened her. Teyla had laid her hand over his and thanked him for telling her, though, and they’d had a nice moment over it. He liked to remember the warmth of her hand on his and the warmth in her eyes as she’d smiled at him; it generated a corresponding warmth in him that helped to make the passage of the long, hardship-filled days more bearable. 

The days actually were lengthening and getting warmer, too. They both wore less, Teyla sometimes stripping down to her sports bra when they were working in the woods or in the now somewhat stifling confines of the ruin. It was a good thing that they didn’t have to deal with the approach of winter, but the slide into heat and light meant that there would, eventually, be a corresponding slide into cold and darkness, and they were neither equipped to deal with winter weather nor free to migrate to a warmer climate when the weather changed. Their hope of return lay within the ruin, and, as the days turned into weeks and Rodney’s assurance of his own competence began to waver, the pressure to unlock the secrets of the ruin and the device grew. If Sheppard had been there, he’d have long since resorted to yelling, his taunts and threats meant to inspire Rodney to perform, which was at least as annoying as it was inspiring. Teyla would never do any such thing, but she didn’t need to. Her quiet confidence in him, her complete trust and her dependence on his abilities were more than enough inspiration for him. He’d wade through a herd of wildcats before he’d fail her.

* _Day 3_ *

“It’s useless! Fucking useless.” Rodney scrambled unsteadily to his feet and pulled back one leg as though he would kick the device, staggered and nearly fell over when his lacerated calf twinged suddenly and mightily and his supporting knee almost buckled. Teyla jumped up to steady him and then helped him to sit, again. He rubbed both hands over his face, frustrated at his continued failure and embarrassed by his outburst, as Teyla helped to straighten his injured leg out in front of him and passed her hands lightly over the bandage.

“It is early days, Rodney. You’re frustrated and in pain, but you are learning much about the device and I’m sure that you’ll have an answer soon.”

“I’ve learned squat, and damned right I’m in pain. What time is it?” Teyla glanced up at the sun and then began to rifle through the tac vest lying on the ground beside her. “We’ve been here three days, and all I’ve managed to do so far is to get mauled. This planet is going to kill me before I can get us home.”

Teyla handed two tablets and her canteen to him. She watched him closely as he swallowed the pills down, then raised an eyebrow at him. “So, you are giving up, then? There is no more to be done?”

He handed the canteen back to her, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Of course there’s more to be done, and of course I’m going to do it. I’m just….” He looked down at his leg and frowned. “When I said that these circumstances would be trying, that was beyond an understatement. This—“ he gestured down at his leg and then around them, “is just way more than what a civilized human being should have to tolerate. This is _not_ what I earned all of those degrees for. I can’t even—“ He waved his hands over his head, red faced and sweaty and miserable. 

Teyla tilted her head and blinked at him. “I would think this was exactly the sort of thing your studies would be most useful for. Certainly no one with less education or experience than you have would be equal to the task.”

“Not that an innate facility, even a level of genius, is any less important in these situations.” Rodney rubbed at his forehead. “Those things are just easier to access on some days than others.”

“I don’t doubt that that’s true. And I do not think it was wise for you to attempt to work on the device today, in your condition, though your commitment to the task is admirable. I certainly shared my concern about that when you expressed the desire to do so, but you would not be dissuaded from the attempt.”

That wasn’t exactly the way Rodney remembered that conversation going—he felt fairly certain that he’d expressed some definite misgivings about the hike to the ruins--but it was possible that the severe pain that he was in had affected his memory, as it was affecting his ability to concentrate. “And you were right, of course. It was rash, and, and stupidly selfless of me. I should have stayed in, today.”

“And that is what you will do, once we get you back to the camp. There are many things I could be doing there while you rest. Are you ready to walk back, now, or would you like to wait?”

The Tylenol hadn’t really kicked in, yet, but he didn’t think he could stand to look at the walls of this room or the quiescent device and the lack of progress they represented any longer. “Let’s go. I may need to lean on you, though.”

“You will certainly lean on me, and we will go slowly.” She helped him to rise, her small hands surprisingly strong on his elbows, and slipped under his arm, one of her arms around his waist, their supplies and his impromptu, rough-hewn crutch in her free hand. 

They were mostly quiet on the way back to camp; Rodney’s slightly labored breathing and occasion gasp in counterpoint to Teyla’s gentle encouragement was their only conversation. When they arrived, Teyla helped him to lie back in their in-process shelter and tried to help to arrange him comfortably. After a few moments, he batted her away and threw one arm over his eyes, muttering softly to himself. He could hear Teyla move away and then busy herself around the campsite, the soft sounds of her activity comforting and familiar. 

He was so tired; until their shelter was complete and they knew more about the area they were sleeping in shifts, keeping watch for whatever might lurk in the darkness around them—mountain lions, apparently, and rats the size of your head that would also take a chunk out of you, given the chance. Those stayed around the ruins, mostly—probably because of the mountain lions in the woods. He’d been in too much pain, last night, to sleep much, anyway, though he hadn’t been much of a guard, either, jumping at every sound. He didn’t know how Teyla had gotten any sleep at all. 

He was drifting, on the edge of sleep but not quite there, when a shifting of the shadows across his eyelids startled him. He opened his eyes to see Teyla peering in at him, one hand half-extended toward his face. 

She smiled apologetically at him. “I wanted to see how you were, if you were at all feverish. I did not mean to wake you.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay, I wasn’t asleep.” He held still while she slid her hand across his forehead, down the side of his face and onto the back of his neck; it was incredibly soothing, and he missed her touch when she pulled away.

“There seems to be no fever.” She smiled at him, and he felt foolishly grateful for it. “Would you like some water?” 

“No, I’m good.” He should hydrate, he knew, but he’d do it later; he didn’t feel like making a trip even as far as the nearest tree, right now. She nodded and smiled, again, and started to back away, and he discovered that he didn’t want her to go, even tired as he was. “Hey, Teyla?”

She paused and looked at him, her expression expectant, and he suddenly felt overwhelmed with all he wanted to say to her while having absolutely no idea what it was. 

She blinked at him. “Yes, Rodney?”

“Thank you.” That felt stupidly inadequate, but she was smiling, again, so that was something. “I, I just want to thank you. For everything.” For more than he had words to express, he thought, for more than he could even grasp, himself. He had a feeling that there were reams of things he should be thanking her for that he wasn’t even aware of, that the stars couldn’t contain the depth and breadth of the goodness that was Teyla or the richness and the rightness that she brought to everything she touched. He also felt kind of strange.

“You are most welcome, Rodney. It is you, after all, who will shortly have us home and safe, who is working hard to make that happen. I have much to thank you for, as well.”

“S’nothing.” He could feel himself drifting, sort of muzzy and high, and he closed his eyes. 

“It is a great deal, Rodney.” He felt her briefly touch his leg, and then he slipped into sleep, his last thought to wonder if that had actually been Tylenol that Teyla had given him or some of their very limited supply of morphine. He decided that either was fine.

* _Day +26_ *

“This isn’t making sense.” Rodney set his tools down, leaned back and stretched, first with his hands clasped behind his head and then stretched out to either side of him, careful not to thwap Teyla in the head as he twisted carefully. His spine cracked gratifyingly.

“Less so now than when you began?” Teyla set her current work down, as well—a piece of hardwood that she was carving into a spoon shape—and watched his contortions. Rodney anticipated the feeling of her hands moving over the spots that her eyes skimmed, across his shoulders and down his arms, later that evening, and felt a rush of warmth.

“Well, no.” He dropped his arms and frowned down at the device in front of him, stubborn and silent and in a few more pieces than when they’d found it. “I’m starting to understand its function, and it’s amazing, really—like something Janus might have developed, though much smaller than anything of his that we’ve found up to now, and more…basic? Less complete? A prototype, possibly, or the work of a rival?” Rodney scratched at the back of his head. “And that it was hidden here, on this god-forsaken, backwoods rock without even a planet-based gate….” He shook his head. “Who were these people, and why did they have this device stashed in a wall?” 

“It has often proved inconvenient that the Ancients did not provide more complete information in their database.” Teyla began to gather her tools into her bundle, sweeping wood shavings away from her legs. 

“Or that we can’t decipher what’s there. We may be missing some of that information because we simply haven’t found it, or can’t read it.” Rodney looked up at the wall above them. “Much like the information written all over these walls. If that’s what it is. It could be recipes, for all we know.” He leaned forward, pushed the pedestal the device stood on further into the cavity and draped it in a shroud made of his former bandages. 

“For roasted rat, perhaps.” Teyla grinned and pulled away the leg she’d had resting across one of Rodney’s, then tucked both legs underneath her as she readied herself to stand.

“Certainly not rat tartare. Rat flambé, maybe.” Rodney grinned back at her as he also rose and stretched, again, reaching for the ceiling and groaning. 

“Stewed rat with root vegetables,” Teyla offered, and chuckled at his grimace; they shouldn’t have attempted that one without any salt.

“Suddenly I’m feeling like bird, tonight. You clean and I’ll cook?” Teyla smiled her agreement at him as they walked together through the warm slant of the late-afternoon sunlight toward their camp.

***

“It’s just, I feel that there’s something fundamental that I’m missing, here.” Rodney picked the last of the meat off the bird’s bones and then tossed the remains into the midden basket. He sucked briefly at his fingers, tempted to make the obvious joke but deciding against it—he wasn’t in the mood to explain it. “Not in the usual, ‘oh, it’ll come to me eventually’ way. I really feel that the information I’m missing is making it next to impossible for me to move forward.”

Teyla worked at gathering up the detritus of their meal as she answered him. “And you are worried?”

“Well, yes, frankly. If this is actually as far as I’m going to be able to take this….” He used some leaves to clean his hands and then added them to the basket. “Have you, have you thought about,” he studied his fingers, picked up another leaf and tore absently at it, “have you considered that we might not be able to leave this place, or this time? And that we may not be found?”

Teyla stilled, then walked slowly around the smoldering fire ring to sit down next to him. “Honestly? Yes, I have—not in a serious way,” she added when Rodney looked quickly up at her, “but more…considering. Contemplating the idea, not planning for the possibility. I remain confident that you’ll solve the problem, Rodney.”

“Well, that makes one of us.” Rodney looked down at his hands, again; Teyla laid her hand softly onto his forearm. “What if I can’t? What if we end up spending the rest of our lives stranded here? Like, like castaways.” He looked up into the trees around them. 

Teyla’s hand slid away again as she turned to face him. “Well, if you want to know how I feel about the possibility, I would say that I can think of worse ways to spend the rest of my life.” She smiled as Rodney blinked at her. “This planet is similar to Athos, in some ways, familiar enough that I feel confident in our ability to survive, here. And though I very much appreciate the comforts of Atlantis and the opportunity to join your people’s fight against the Wraith, and the friendships I have made while doing so, this is the sort of life that I was brought up to and lived, for many years. I believe that it would be less of a hardship for me to adapt to such a life than it would be for you.”

Rodney stared at her, his eyes round and a little confused. “You’re not saying you wouldn’t mind? That can’t be true.”

Teyla shook her head. “No, no it is not. I would miss my people, my family and my friends, my team and my allies.” She reached forward and took his hand, un-twining his fingers from each other and meshing them with hers. “But I would have you, and that would go a long way toward making such a life more bearable. And I am not afraid.”

Rodney’s eyes widened further before he turned his face away, looking off toward where the sun set through the trees. “But we’d be alone, the two of us, we’d get old and infirm and die a lonely, lingering death and probably be eaten by rats.”

Teyla chuckled, and Rodney turned back to look at her, a little offended, but she glanced away from him, down at their joined hands, and surprised him by coloring, a little. “We would not necessarily be alone. It is, in fact, unlikely that we would remain so.” 

Rodney stared at her silently, for a moment, then flushed and fumbled with her hand. Teyla looked quickly up at him, her cheeks still bearing traces of pink but her eyes narrowing. “That, no! I wouldn’t ever, I wouldn’t expect—“ Teyla was frowning at him, now, and he felt the pull of her fingers releasing their hold on his. “I mean, I would never subject you to that sort of risk!”

She blinked at him. “Rodney, children are not a risk; in the event of a long stay here, they would mean security, as well as companionship and—“

“I mean, you’d have to—“ Rodney made thrusting motions with both hands; Teyla looked a little startled. “Birth! You’d have to give birth!”

Teyla laughed. “That is how the process usually works, Rodney, yes.”

“That’s dangerous! Without a doctor, or anesthesia or surgical equipment or sterile facilities—“

“Women have been having babies for thousands of years, Rodney, usually without doctors.”

“And they die! Or the babies, do, or they _both_ do, and I couldn’t lose you like that! Not for,” he stared into her eyes, as though willing her understanding. “I couldn’t risk that.”

“Isn’t that my decision to make, Rodney?” Teyla was back to eyeing him narrowly, but she wasn’t moving away from him or hitting him or anything, which was something, as he felt he was failing at this conversation miserably. 

“Not entirely, no.” Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and worked hard at not fleeing their clearing in panic. A headlong run through darkening woods would just end with him on crutches, again. Not that he would actually do that to Teyla. Especially since she could probably catch him. 

Teyla sighed and lowered her eyelids briefly, seeming to collect herself. “I think we are getting very much ahead of ourselves. These are decisions to be made when the need arises, not now. Not when there is still every possibility that we will not be forced to remain here.” 

“Yes, right, absolutely—we’ll find a way. I’ll find a way.” And you will not die a bloody, horrible in death in childbirth, in any case, Rodney thought, not on my watch. He stood and looked around them, then picked up the refuse basket. “I’ll dispose of this, if it’s ready to go,” he said, and gestured toward her with it.

“Yes, fine.” Teyla nodded, then watched him as he walked out of their clearing. When he was out of her sight, she lowered her face into her hands and sighed.

***

“Rodney, let me—“

“No, I’m fine, really, fine, totally good.” Rodney reached one arm up from where he lay in the close confines of their shelter and waved it a bit. “Perfectly loose and comfortable.”

“On the contrary, you are quite tense, and your muscles are very tight.” Rodney tried not to roll his eyes; he couldn’t imagine how _that_ could have happened. “You will be miserable at work, tomorrow, if you do not let me help you. You know that this is true.”

He still found it charming, the way she referred to their daily excursions to the dratted ruins as him “going to work,” but he didn’t let that influence him. He lay still, facing away from her, morosely contemplating how true what she was saying actually was.

“Rodney. Do you fear that I will assault you?” 

He started at that and turned over quickly to find her kneeling next to him with her hands on her hips, frowning down at him. “No! Of course I don’t, no. I just—“ He flapped a hand at her. “I’m tired.”

“And a massage always helps you to sleep better. Please, Rodney, don’t be silly.”

That stung, that she would call the riot in his head (not to mention the one in his pants) since their earlier conversation “silly,” but possibly he was doing a better job of hiding his feelings than he thought he was. He wanted her hands on him, and, because he did want that so much, he didn’t—the guilt that his desire for her was generating was almost crippling. He felt damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. 

Didn’t was looking somewhat more damning at the moment, though, as Teyla glared down at him, so he sighed, sat up to remove his shirt and then rolled onto his stomach, trying not to project an air of martyrdom. If she thought she’d be able get him to relax by touching him this way, tonight, well, she was in for a long, protracted night of massaging. And he instantly regretted _that_ thought.

The skim of her hands across the skin of his upper back, soft and light, the way she always began, was electric. He almost moaned into his not-pillow—and he had moaned under her hands, before, on many other nights, though not often with the level of desire that was coiling inside him, now (or, at least, not always.) The idea that he had allowed himself to travel down that road, mentally and emotionally, with no real thought given to the potential physical consequences of the things he was imagining or concern for Teyla’s welfare, and the guilt that that engendered in him, worked against the tide of lust to the point that his erection subsided a little, but not entirely. 

He loved her, and he wanted her, but because he loved her he wouldn’t allow himself to be with her in that way. And he sincerely hoped that the subject never came up again; he hoped even more that he’d solve the riddle of the deviant device tomorrow, and they’d be able to go home, and non-hospital-based childbirth would never be an issue for consideration or discussion with anyone he ever knew, ever again. And maybe a winged horse would fly down from the sky, tomorrow, and carry them home. He sighed with several types of frustration as her hands kneaded away at his shoulders.

***

He could tell she wasn’t asleep, both by her breathing and her posture. She lay turned away from him, the straight line of her spine too tense, and he fought with himself over whether he should slide his arm around her and pull her to him, the way they still so often slept, even though the nights were only cooler than the days, now, and not chilly. There was so much comfort in her touch, in the feel of her against him, as well as in her soft words of encouragement and her smiles and her continuing confidence in him. He felt a little bereft, to be lying beside her but not touching her, having become so used to feeling her against him, through the night and through the days, too, on the floor of the ruins.

He felt churlish and stupid and even ungrateful, lying there with inches of space between them in their little hut, but reaching across that space felt almost beyond him. The thought of not, though, the awkwardness and estrangement and hurt that could grow between them—whether they became romantically involved or not, they needed each other, depended on each other and supported each other in a hundred ways, though Rodney had to admit that he was probably the chief beneficiary in that arrangement, if he were honest. Maintaining the trust and the caring that had grown between them was worth the risk of a little deserved rejection. He reached over and let his hand settle on her waist.

She immediately turned toward him. “Rodney.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him. “I am sorry.” He gaped at her for a moment as she looked into his eyes. “It was wrong of me to be so forward. Because your culture is different from mine, I had hoped that you would not mind my speaking so plainly about what I hoped lay between us. I shouldn’t have presumed, and I hope you can forgive me.”

He made goldfish faces at her, then stuttered a little. She looked concerned. “Are you all right, Rodney? I did not mean to—“

“No, dear god, no, you’ve done nothing wrong, not a thing. Teyla.” He felt for her hand, and she grasped his tightly. “This was my fault, I just, I got a little panicky about, uh.” He sighed and closed his eyes, feeling like a tremendous coward but unable to put what he was feeling into words. “Can we pretend today didn’t happen, please?”

She chuckled, and he opened his eyes to see her smiling at him. “I think that would be a very good idea.” 

She leaned her forehead into his, and he closed his eyes and breathed her in, relieved but not comfortable, yet. Maybe it was a huge mistake (and it probably was), but if he was reading her right (and he probably wasn’t) and she thought his issue with their conversation had been lack of feeling for her on his part, he had to let her know that that wasn’t the case, didn’t he? He should tell her that he loved her. It was only right. And if he _was_ right and she felt the way he thought she might, well, okay, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, after all. Not until he’d sorted more of this thing out in his own head. And surely she knew that he loved her, even if she was less clear about how much he wanted her. Except she couldn’t be in doubt of that, either, could she? All those night spent in each other’s arms; of course she knew.

She pulled back far enough to look at him again, and then raised one eyebrow. He didn’t move, for a flustered moment, and then he smiled and rolled onto his back, pulling her with him. She nestled into his chest, her head on his shoulder, and melted into him. Rodney couldn’t imagine being happier than he was at that moment, unless it involved a prescription mattress and room service. 

She hummed a little, and he tightened his arms around her. He needed to say more, something, but all he could put together was, “Thank you.” 

She raised her head and looked at him consideringly; he wasn’t sure what to make of that. “We make a good team, I think, yes?”

“I, yes, yes I think so, too. I really can’t imagine doing this without you.” He tried to, for a moment, and had to suppress a frown; that would probably have sent the wrong message. “Really, you’ve been a godsend, in so many ways. I’d be utterly useless on my own, out here.” 

“And I would have no chance of getting home without you. Which I know that we shall do.” He thought that this was probably not the best time to mention that they were here in the first place because of him. “We complement each other well, in many ways. We may not have ever discovered this without finding ourselves in this situation.”

“Is this a bright side argument? Because I think that you’re probably right, as strange as it feels to say that.” He grinned at her and then pulled her closer, again, pressing a kiss onto her forehead. She settled into him in that perfect yin-yang fit they’d developed—here, in bed, or outside, dealing with the frustrations and challenges of their days, complementing and strengthening and enhancing each other’s performance, bringing out the….

Rodney’s eyes went wide, and he sat up so abruptly that Teyla's head slipped from his shoulder and thumped onto the ground. “That’s it,” he whispered.

“What is?” Teyla sat up next to him, rubbing at the side of her head.

He turned to her excitedly. _”There are more parts to the device.”_ He was so stunned and excited by the thought that he would have jumped to his feet, if that wouldn’t have destroyed their shelter.

“More parts? Where—“ She stilled with her hand on the side of her head, her eyes widening. “In the wall.”

“That’s why the location of it was so hard to pin down, and why the readings were so diffuse and didn’t make sense—there are more pieces of the thing in other compartments, who knows how many. We found a compartment with a loose panel and thought we’d found the whole thing, but there could be any number—“ He rubbed his hands through his hair. “It’s made to function in combination with other pieces—that’s what was missing. And maybe it still is, because of their proximity, but without actually seeing all the pieces and working with them, I’m unable to adjust or control it. We were unlucky enough to stumble on the activation module without having access to any of the controls.” He started to roll forward, onto his knees, buzzing with the need to run immediately to the ruin and start destroying it. 

Teyla laughed and grasped his arm. “It will be there in the morning, Rodney. Dawn is only hours away. This is not the kind of work you should undertake with only one small flashlight to see by.” 

He turned to her, giddy and thrilled and close to bursting out of his skin with excitement. “We can go home. It has to be there. We can go home.” She smiled brilliantly at him and he caught her up in his arms, nearly hyperventilating with relief and nervous laughter. The other parts were there, they had to be. They could go home.

“Yes, Rodney, but in the morning,” she chuckled into his ear. “It will still be there in the morning.” She lay back, pulling him down next to her, and encircled him tightly in her arms. He clung to her in return, his head spinning.

He couldn’t relax, he couldn’t sleep—how could he sleep? Anything could happen in the next few hours; rocks could fall from the sky, a yeti could find their little hut, his heart could explode in his chest. And what if the pieces weren’t really there? “I’m not going to be able to sleep, you know. This is crazy.” He didn’t understand how she could sleep, either—was she really planning to?

She rose up above him, her face inches from his, her smile soft and inviting. “We do not have to sleep,” she murmured, then laughed at the look on his face, a touch of wickedness in her grin. “Tell me how you believe the device will work, Rodney.” 

He smiled up at her, more in love than he could once have imagined possible. As she settled back into his arms, he started to talk.

* _Day +27+_ *

“We’ve pried at these damned things all morning. I’m telling you, it’s going to take a sledgehammer. Or, lacking one of those, a really big rock.” Rodney kicked the nearest panel in frustration; it didn’t budge.

“We will destroy all of this, all of the information inscribed here. If the entire room shifts, as it did before, it is possible that the destruction will persist into our own time.” She pressed one hand to the carved stone. “We are not even sure that these inscriptions don’t have something to do with the workings of the device. Are you sure this is wise?”

Rodney shook his head. “That’s all true, but we don’t have any choice. These things aren’t going to open for us any other way; there’s no magic word.” He stopped and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Abracadabra? Open sesame?” Teyla peered at him curiously, and he shook his head, again. “Not that I thought that that would work, but, there you go. It’s going to have to be the big rock. Really,” he waved at the wall in front of him, “I know I’m impatient and excitable and I may have done a few possibly ill-considered things while in the throes of scientific…enthusiasm,” Teyla raised an eyebrow at him, “but what else are we going to do? I’m open to suggestions.”

Teyla looked up at the wall, again, one side of her mouth twisting. “No, you are correct—we must destroy the panels to find what lies behind them. It is how the wall was designed.”

“Regrets later. Stone hunting now.” Rodney jogged through the doorway, and Teyla hurried to follow him.

***

“This is it. This has to be it.” Rodney swiped the sweat away from his eyes, leaving a smear through the dust on his face. They sat amidst piles of rubble in front of the now denuded wall, within a space cleared for Rodney to work on the half-dozen pieces of the device they’d found hidden in the compartments inside. The assembled device glowed in front of them, considerably larger than the little activation module he’d initially touched. There was what appeared to be a slot for it in the top of the larger device; Rodney stared at it in trepidation, and then over his shoulder at Teyla, crouched close behind him, one hand on his back.

“It is ready, then?” She looked at the device and then back at him, the same excitement and apprehension in her face that he felt, himself. 

“I think so. As ready as I know how to make it, at this point. Are we ready?”

“More than ready.” She moved to sit beside him, her hand never leaving his body, and took a deep, slow breath.

Rodney nodded and reached for the control module, then stopped, his hand in mid-air. He turned to her again and met her puzzled frown. “Teyla.” She didn’t reply, just watched him closely. “I should tell you—“

She held up one hand. “I know that there are risks, Rodney. I am prepared to take them. If we do nothing but travel to another time that is not our own, well, we shall try again. If,” she swallowed, “if something more serious occurs, I am prepared for that as well. I have no regrets.” 

Rodney smiled at her. “I know—and, yes, I agree with you. With all of that.” He reached over and took her hand. “I want to, there’s so much that I want to say to you, Teyla, that I need to say and that I need you to know, but I can’t,” he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her dusty knuckles, “until we’re home. I want to tell you, once we’re home.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes. Once we are home.” She smiled at him, and he hoped that meant that she understood at least some of what he wanted to tell her, in case this was one of those rare occasions when his genius actually failed him, failed them, and they never made it home. 

“Okay, then.” He nodded and sat up straighter; she squeezed his hand and released it, and he turned back to the device. He’d calibrated the thing, already, checked and rechecked it, and if he was ever going to be right about anything, ever again, then this should be it, right now. He’d done everything he could to make it so.

He picked up the control module, slotted it into the top of the device, and twisted. When the hum started and the blue glow began to line the ruined walls, he smiled.

* _Day 27/0_ *

“Did it work?” Teyla was pushing herself up to sitting, next to him; he rubbed at his elbow and sat up, as well. The same rubble filled the room, and dust still clung to their clothes and frosted their hair. They looked at each other, eyes wide, and then turned to look at the room around them. At the same moment, a burst of gunfire, followed by an energy blast and Ronon’s triumphant “Ha!” sounded from outside. 

He looked up to see Teyla staring at him, her eyes round and damp. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. He coughed and tried again. “It worked. We’re here.” Teyla’s smile began to spread across her face, widening to the point that he thought it must hurt. “We’re really here. And I don’t think,” he looked up at the light streaming in through the holes in the ceiling--that old, familiar ceiling, “I don’t think any time has even passed.”

Teyla’s eyebrows shot up. “No time has passed?” She looked like she might have laughed, or maybe cried, but Rodney didn’t give her the chance; he grabbed her to his chest, hard enough that she squeaked, and kissed her, deeply and passionately. 

He released her after a moment and grinned down at her, but she wasn’t smiling. His grin disappeared as he stared into her wide eyes, but before the panic could really set in, she threw her arms around him and returned his kiss with a fervor that took his breath away—literally, as they fell backwards together to the rubble-strewn floor, her body on top of his and her arms wrapped tightly around him. For all of about ten seconds, Rodney experienced absolute bliss.

Until he heard Sheppard’s voice from the doorway. “Hey, how are you—whoa, hey! No, that’s not, wow! What the hell did you do?” They turned together to look at Sheppard, standing slack-jawed in the doorway as he took in the scene of lust and destruction spread out before him, and started to laugh. 

Sheppard turned his stunned stare from the two of them on the floor to the really ruined wall, now a honeycomb of open compartments, then back to the piles of debris surrounding them, the device sitting in front of them and, finally, back to Rodney and Teyla, themselves. He shook his head. “No, seriously, what the hell happened here? I leave you alone for _two minutes_ —“

Ronon’s bulk blocked out most of the light from the doorway as he walked up to stand behind Sheppard and scanned the room, as well. “Whoa.”

“That’s what I said!” Sheppard shouted. “Seriously, Rodney—“

“It’s a long story, Sheppard,” Rodney said, still laughing, as he rose and helped Teyla to her feet.

“Approximately a month long,” Teyla agreed, dusting at the seat of her pants and trying to regain her composure.

Sheppard eyed them askance; Ronon just stared and grinned. “Okay, I think we have a LOT to talk about,” Sheppard said, and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“That we do,” Rodney said, smiling at Teyla. He reached out and took her hand. 

********


End file.
